Is This the new Chinese H-20 Bomber? Or a photoshop?

Stealth Saga #59

Sixth Generation Fighters:

The USAF's NGAD appears to be on track - if it follows the same course as the LRSB/B-21 - to make a selection in 2023.

The USN's Next Generation Fighter appears to have either been cancelled or gone black.

A think tank created a forum for Australia, Japan and the US to discuss requirements for the next gen fighters.

Mike Griffin is deeply skeptical of lasers on aircraft.

The Franco-German FCAS has started the demonstrator phase.

The Germans are considering the ethics of the FCAS program.

Japan has decided to build their own next gen fighter rather than participate in foreign systems.

Japan wants their next gen fighter to carry a lot more missiles than the F-35.

Japan may consider exporting its next gen fighter due to its high costs.

Japan has picked American companies to work with on its next gen fighter, but will take the lead on the project.  They will not be joining the British led Tempest project.

Loyal Wingmen:

The USAF has started its Loyal Wingman program officially, called Skyborg.

Australia's loyal wingman drone has made progress.

Su-57:

A video suggests the Su-57 finally launched a missile from its small, side bay.

The Russians have been  testing an unmanned flight mode for the Su-57.

The Russians are also claiming the Su-57 has met almsot all testing goals.

B-2:

F-117:

The F-117 conducted missions over the pacific ocean twice off the coast of California.

F-22:

F-22s intercepted a Russian aircraft.  What happened next depends on who is telling the story.

An F-22 has crashed in Florida.

F-22s participated in an elephant walk in Hawaii.

F-22s in Alaska participated in an elephant walk.

F-35:

Trump is not happy parts of the F-35 are made overseas.

The F-35 is having some parts problems after removing the Turks from the program.

The Pentagon issued a contract for 78 F-35s from Lockheed.  48 F-35As, 14 F-35Bs and 16 F-35Cs.

The Pentagon is looking at how to extend the life of the OLEDs on the F-35 helmets.

In light of COVID-19, how is the testing continuing at Edwards AFB?

F-35 manufacturing will not meet its goals due to covid-19 impacts.

Some still are not happy about the F-35 program.

The total SSDs left for the F-35 have been reduced from 43 to 6, but the bulkhead cracking is still one of them.

USAF and Israeli F-35s exercised together.

A USAF F-35 crashed in Florida.

USAF F-35As returning to Hill AFB from the Middle East are coming back with unique nicknames.

Two F-35As flew to Eielson AFB.

The US military is considering removing the F-35 from Britain over the Huawei 5G plans.

The USMC does not have enough pilots to fly their F-35Bs.

The USMC won't cut their F-35 procurements for now, but that may change.  They are debating that.

USMC's F-35C equipped VMFA-314 has been declared safe for flight.

An Australian firm will produce cannon ammo for the F-35.

The US approved a support package for South Korean F-35s.

Collins will deliver the Tactical Combat Training Increment II for the F-35.

META:

Northrop is developing a gateway for networking 5th gen fighters.

Paleolithic Papers #35

Genus Homo:

H. sapiens:

The late Pleistocene dating for Cooper's Ferry is disputed and here is the response.

H. neanderthalensis:

Neandertals made string, cord or twine.

H. antecessor:

H. antecessor is either the last common ancestor for Denisovans, Neandertals and modern humans or really, really close to it.

H. heidelbergensis:

The Broken Hill skull has been dated from ~299 thousand years gao.

H. naledi:

The DH7 juvenile skeleton gives some insight as to how H. naledi matured.

H. erectus:

H. erectus lived alongside paranthropus and australopethicus in South Africa.

Carnivores were responsible for the accumulation of H. erectus fossils at Dmanisi.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. afarensis:

Lucy's brain grew like a modern human's, but was organized like an ape's.

META:  

What did ancient humans look like?

How thick was the enamel on plio-pleistocene hominins?

How did the talus evolve in early hominins?

Were there multiple descents from the trees?

The role of cladistics in paleoanthropology.

Terminator Times #70

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones):

DARPA's AlphaDogFight final demo is imminent.

The USAF is planning when to buy Loyal Wingmen drones.

The USAF has taken over a remote Mojave airstrip and turned it into a drone air base.

The USMC has realized they were asking for too much with the MUX drone and are going to redo the program.

A comparison of the F-35 and the XQ-58A Valkyrie.

Attritable UAVs have defense contractors rethinking their approaches with the probable lost of the lucrative MRO contracts.

Elon Musk told USAF fighter pilots the era of the manned fighter has passed and that the F-35 should have an unmanned competitor.

The USN exercised a clause in the contract for the MQ-25A to get 3 more by 2024 and Boeing is refusing to add extra capabilities to keep costs low.

How the MQ-8C is helping the USN with its surveillance gaps.

Argentina has produced the Asteri RUAS 160 VTOL UAV.

Australia has accepted the new engine for the CamCopter VTOL drones.

Australia has selected four companies to compete to replace its Shadow 200 UAVs.

The British have stood up a group to develop swarming drones.

China showcased its BZK-005 UAV.

Russia has integrated the Orlan-10 UAV into its 2s5 artillery units.

South Korea is considering its KUS-FS UAV for ground command operations.

South Korea expects their RQ-4 to begin initial operations by year's end.

Taiwan has decided not to buy the MQ-9B VTOL UAV.

Turkish UAVs are playing an important role in the battle of Idlib in Syria.

Turkish drones killed 19 Syrian government soldiers.

Turkey sold UAVs to Tunisia.

(above) Ukraine unveiled its Thunder suicide drone.

Ukraine has unveiled the RAM suicide drone.

Boeing is leveraging its relationships with Australian business to work on its Loyal Wingman tech.

General Atomics has unveiled its Defender Loyal Wingman to protect tankers and other like assets.

General Dynamics' first production quality MQ-9B has started flight tests.

Meet Northrop's XRQ-72A Great Horned Owl.

UAVOS & KACST unveiled the Saker-1B UAV and demonstrated progressive flight control.

UMS Skeldar has unveiled an enhanced V-150 VTOL UAV.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Bolos & Ogres & Terminators, oh my!):

Britain's DSTL has ordered its first autonomous UGVs.

IrvinGQ has developed an airdrop platform for the MilRem UGV.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (Ro Boats):

GeoSpectrum has developed a scaled down traps sonar for USVs.

Zycroft has updated its Dolphin USV.

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (Robo subs):

DARPA is expanding its Manta Ray autonomous UUV program.

The USN is combining two UUV programs.

The USN conducted an exercise with UUVs equipped with SONAR and suggests that is the future of ASW operations.

China's latest Haiyi underwater gliders have been deployed to the Indian Ocean.

Stealth Saga #58

Sixth Generation Fighters:

The USAF has stated manned fighters could start being replaced by UCAVs within 5 years.

Elon Musk agrees and stated the era of the manned fighter has passed.

The US Navy will cut F/A-18E/F production to speed up their next generation fighter.

France and Germany have started the demonstrator phase for the FCAS program.  Spain will join.

The French Neuron UAV will inform the FCAS program.

Dassault blames politics for the demise of the Anglo-French 6th gen fighter project.

Loyal Wingmen:

The USAF is plotting the course for when the Loyal Wingmen will be introduced.

The USAF/Kratos Valkyrie gets compared to the F-35 for capabilities vs cost.

The Australian/Boeing Loyal Wingman ATS is progressing.

KFX:

Elbit will provide TF/TA systems for the South Korean KFX system.

Su-57:

The Su-57 has been spotted testing the new engine.

B-21:

The B-21 renderings show subtle differences between the B-2 and the B-21.

B-2:

B-2s flew to Iceland and exercised with Norwegian F-35s and USAF F-15s.

A B-2 deployed to the Azores.

B-2 DMS-M upgrades will be limited to the cockpit.

F-117:

A stripped F-117 has been placed on a government website for sale on a government surplus website.

An F-117 has been spotted over Star Wars Canyon again.

F-22:

F-22s and F-35s exercised in Hawaii.

For F-22 & F-35 demo pilots, aggressive maneuvering is the norm.

Watch F-22s arrive in Singapore.

F-22s returned from a short notice deployment in Qatar.

Watch an F-22 do a slo-mo take-off and vertical climb.

F-22s and CF-18s intercepted Tu-142s off Alaska.

F-35:

500 F-35s have been delivered.

The Pentagon is unsure if the new approach will fix the ALIS issues and lacks performance metrics for the system.

Captain Kristin "Beo" Wolfe joined the F-35 demo team.

Lot 9 and new F-35s are getting cracks after using their guns.

The newest F-35A squadron is showing off the F-35A's capabilities at Red Flag.

F-35As in the Middle East found a GBAD system.

F-35A store separation tests have completed ahead of schedule.

The F-35B will be flying at the Singapore airshow.

F-35Bs exercised off the USS America (which is flying the Captain America flag) in the South China Sea.

USMC F-35Cs have arrived at Miramar.

The first F-35C pilot has earned the Britannia award.

Australia and Britain are opening an F-35 reprogramming facility in the US.

Indonesia wants to buy the F-35 instead of the Su-35.

Israel is buying another 25 F-35Is.

The Japanese F-35 production line shutdown due to the COVID-19 virus.

The JASDF 302 Squadron emblem has been unveiled.

Norwegian F-35As in Iceland.

Norwegian F-35As (and others' Eurofighters) intercepted Tu-142s.

Lockheed could be financially liable for unmet SDD requirements.

F-35 profitability might suffer with the loss of Turkish manufacturing.

A Chinese Destroyer Fired a Laser on a US Navy Aircraft

A Chinese destroyer lased a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft that was operating over international waters about 380 miles west of Guam, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement.

The laser could not be seen by a human eye but was captured by sensors on the airplane, which is a variant of the Boeing 737 that has been upgraded with sensors and systems to support tracking surface and undersea targets.

The incident, which PACFLT called “unsafe and unprofessional,” took place on Feb. 17 and was just announced by the Navy.

Weapons-grade lasers could potentially cause serious harm to aircrew and mariners, as well as ship and aircraft systems, PACFLT noted in its statement.

The destroyer involved appears to be Hohhot, a Type 052D or Luyang III-class destroyer in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy. This destroyer, pennant number 161, is among the newer Chinese destroyers and entered the fleet last year, according to news reports.

The PACFLT statement says the lasing violates both bilateral and multilateral agreements between the U.S. Navy and PLAN, including a 2014 agreement that specifically notes that the use of lasers could cause harm to personnel or damage to equipment.

link.

Terminator Times #69

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones):

The US has ended a secretive UAV program with Turkey over Turkey's actions in Syria.

DARPA is starting an infrastructureless launch and recovery system program for UAVs.

The Valkyrie has had a successful 4th flight and expanded its flight envelope.

Kratos has started XQ-58A production despite the delay in the production contract by the USAF.

Details of the USAF RQ-170's first trip to South Korea emerge.

A USAF General thinks the Reaper would be the ideal SOCCOM overwatch aircraft.

The USAF is abruptly ending Reaper procurements.

And CENTCOM wants more Reapers.

The USAF has stated UAVs could start replacing manned fighters in mid 2020s.

The USMC is seeking medium and long endurance ISTAR UAVs.

The first USN Tritons arrive in the west Pacific.

The USN demoed flying EA-18G Growlers as unmanned aerial vehicles by another Growler.

The Australian/Boeing Loyal Wingman ATS is progressing.

Australia will buy a 2nd Triton.

The Bahamas have bought UAVs.

The British are planning a large UAV demo off the HMS Prince of Wales.

China unveiled a 3 engine variant of the Tengen TB001.

Egypt has deployed its Wing Loong II drones to western bases.

The French Neuron UAV is informing the FCAS 6th gen fighter effort.

The Houthis attacked Saudi Arabia with drones again.

Indonesia approved the plan to procure ScanEagle UAVs.

Israel's drone sector is changing.

Morocco has received 3 Harfang UAVs from France.

Portugal has added VTOL UAV capabilities to its OPV ships.

Russia has ordered an updated Forpost UAV.

Russia accused Turkey of illegally sending its drones into Idlib, Syria.

South Korea has set up a new squadron to operate its Global Hawks.

South Korea is developing UAV engines.

Syria shot down two drones near Hmeimim airbase.

A Turkish drone was shot down in Idlib.

BAe's PHASA 35 has flown for the first time.

BGJX unveiled more details about its JH-1 Dragon VTOL UAV.

CIAC is attempting to pitch its UAV to the Colombian military.

Controp is working on a a quad copter for surveillance.

Edge unveiled its Garmousha VTOL UAV.

Elbit will demo the Hermes 900 for civilian applications for the UK.

General Atomics received more funding for Reapers, $7.8M.

General Atomics will extend its partnership with Cobham in Australia.

General Atomics demonstrated laser comm to orbit for a OAV.

General Atomics unveiled the Defender UCAV: it looks like the Avenger's big brother and suspiciously like the Avenger twist I posited here.

IAI introduces the Heron II.

IAI signed an MOU with Indian companies to locally produce UAVs.

Leidos completed the purchase of Dynetics.

Watch a Lockheed drone recovery go very wrong.

Piaggio's administrator has called for bids for the purchase of the drone company.

PT Len is developing UAV mission payloads.

Safran is working on fixing the Patroller UAV after a crash.

ST Engineering unveiled its Veloce VTOL UAVs.

UAVOS continues to work on VTOL UAVs.

UAVOS will demo maritime search and rescue with its ISR350-5 VTOL UAV.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Bolos & Ogres, & Terminators, oh my!):

The artillery branch of the US Army is seeking autonomous ammo haulers for the artillery.

Autonomous supply vehicles may increase safety for the US Army convoys.

Milrem is showcasing its updated Themis UAV.

ST Engineering has a new remote weapon station for UGVs.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (ro-boats):

DARPA lays out its goals for NOMARS.

The USN is working on resiliency for its USVs.

The USN is starting initial low rate production of the CUSV as part of the Unmanned Influence Sweep System.

Britain has procured a MANTIS T12 USV.

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (robo subs):

DOT&E states the Knifefish needs more development.

Huntington Ingalls is prepping for US Navy demand in UUVs.  They bought Hydroid.

Northrop will integrate its sonar systems on L3 Harris UUVs.

Software Bots:

The Pentagon has established ethical guidelines for AI work.

META:

Former democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang called for a ban on autonomous weapons.

DARPA is pushing forward with its Assured Autonomy program.

Paleolithic Papers #34

Genus Homo:

Modern human and Neandertal relics are washing up on shore in the North Sea.

Neandertal DNA might be more common in modern humans than previously thought.

What cave art reveals about human nature.

Scientists have uncovered a ghost lineage of ancient hominins in West African genomes.

Was there evidence of a technological break or gap or evolution at a cave in Israel?

Modern Humans (H. sapiens):

Mesolithic site  remains show cooking tubers took place.

Pottery from the Amur River region from the late Pleistocene has been found.

Settling of the Americas remains complex with outliers in cranial morphology being found.

How old is the oldest H. sapiens skull?  The one from Florisbad.

A skeleton of a 30 year old woman from Mexico dating from the end Pleistocene/dawn Holocene has interesting insights to the early native American populations.

What was the climate variability like during the early expansions of modern humans out of Africa?

Neandertals (H. neanderthalensis):

The last Neandertals might have lived at Byzovaya, above the Arctic Circle in Russia.

Neandertals made an epic trek 60k years ago to the Altai Mountains.

There is evidence of two separate migrations into Asia by Neandertals.

Inbreeding might have been the doom of Neandertals.

Denisovans:

Mitochondrial DNA from Densovans has been found in modern human nuclear DNA.

Denisovans were more complex than we originally thought.

Meet the Denisovans.

H. antecessor:

Two juvenile scapula from Spain are examined.

H. erectus:

H. erectus arrived in Java 200,000 years later than originally thought.

H. erectus might have engaged in long range trade for obsidian.

Genus Australopithecus:

A. anamensis:

What ecology did A. anamensis live in?

META:

Nasty recessives aren't an obstacle to introgression between hominins.

What we have learned about human evolution and what remains to be understood?

African climate forcing simulation for the last 140,000 years and its implication for human evolution.

There's a new method for figuring out where ancient humans came from.

Human language probably evolved gradually.

When did hominins begin to understand death.

How to estimate the contamination of ancient DNA by modern.

Stealth Saga #57

6th Generation Fighters:

Rolls Royce will develop a new engine for the British led Tempest fighter.

TF-X:

Turkey has invited Malaysia to join its program.

Su-57:

Another article on the first production Su-57 crash.

PAK-DA:

Supposedly (in russian), a contract was signed in 2017.  Testing of three prototypes is supposed to happen starting this fall (2020).  Development is supposed to continue through 2026.  State testing is supposed to take place between 2026 to 2028.

Chinese Stealth Aircraft:

Chinese aviation watchers are expecting to see new aircraft this year.

5GAT:

The USAFA and Sierra Nevada designed and built the 5GAT 5th gen target drone.  It might be useable as a Loyal Wingman.

XQ-58A:

DARPA's Valkyrie has had a successful 4th flight and expanded its flight envelope.

RQ-170:

Details of the RQ-170's first trip to South Korea get shown.

B-21: 

The USAF has released renderings of the B-21.  One of which I am very late to post.

B-2:

A B-2 overflew the Rose Bowl.

F-22:

An F-22 at Langley AFB had a landing gear failure.

The new Demo pilot for the F-22 does an interview.

F-35:

2019 was a very good year for the F-35 program.  134 F-35s were delivered.

OTOH, the F-35 has 873 deficiencies.  Including issues with its gun.

The F-35 program will be ditching ALIS for a new software called ODIN.

The F-35 now has a multi aircraft infrared search and track capability.

F-35 can now feed ground interceptors targeting info.

The Pentagon and Lockheed have signed a new sustainment contract.

A new rotor design is being tested for the F-35's engine.

Congress will only allow the USAF to use early F-35As as aggressors once there is some sort of plan.

The USAF released an RFI for the Stand in Attack Weapon for the F-35A.

The monster F-35A elephant walk by the USAF at Hill AFB gets another profile.

The USAF's 158th is training in Florida.

USMC F-35Cs will leave NAS Lemoore for MCAS Miramar.

Lt Col Bann is the first pilot to reach 1,000 hours in the F-35.

The USN is weighing what it takes to get the F-35C on the USS Kennedy.

The Australians have transferred their F-35 pilot training to Australia from the US.

British F-35s will get a DAS upgrade.

British F-35Bs went to Nellis AFB for Red Flag and diverted on the way.

British F-35Bs are conducting sea trials on the USS Queen Elizabeth.

Lockheed has started building Denmark's first F-35.

The Israelis have inaugurated their second F-35I squadron.

An Israeli F-35I appeared on a tracking website again.

Norway is deploying its F-35s to Iceland.

Poland should sign a deal for 32 F-35s shortly.  And they did.  32 birds for $4.6B.

Singapore has requested the F-35B.  The US State Department approved buying 12.

The majority of the parts made in Turkey for the F-35 will be moved to other locations by March.

Lockheed expects F-35 production to rise to 180 annually.

Views From the Starliner Capsule While in Orbit

Wuhan Virus Update

Officially, China says 28k are infected and 563 dead.  Personal projection for tomorrow is 33k and 660 dead.  By Monday, it will be 50k and 1k, imo.

A recent post on Tencent that went back down really fast claimed the infections and deaths are way, way higher than the official numbers.  The Wuhan coronavirus would have a 1:6 kill rate (over 16%) if accurate.

Another report says the infection rate is undercounted and makes it seem the deaths are at a higher percentage than they are.

Singapore has at least 28 infected and business people are getting infected when visiting.

The 12th US case has been detected in Wisconsin.

Two cruise ships are quarantined.  More than 10 tested positive on the cruise ship off Japan.

Despite Russia's Bluster, There are no "Plans" to Send Cosmonauts to Mars

Manned flights to Mars are not stipulated in the guidelines of state policy in the space sphere, Chief Designer and First Deputy CEO of Energia Space Rocket Corporation Yevgeny Mikrin said on Tuesday.

"Such flights are not planned so far and they are absent in the guidelines of the state policy," Mikrin said, replying to a question about whether Russia planned crewed flights to Mars.

link.

Russia Tested its Already Existing Iskander IRBM...and it Broke the INF Limits "accidentally"

During a planned live-firing exercise by Russia, one of its Iskander-M ballistic missile flew beyond 600km and landed outside its designated target area. The missile is said to have been fired from Kapustin Yar for the Makat firing range in Kazakhstan. However, the missile ended up in the Bayganinsky district. The SS-26 Stone or “Iskander” is a road-mobile short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) with a range of up to 500 km. Using a common transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) and support vehicles, the system can also fire the 9M728 (R-500, SSC-7) and 9M729 cruise missiles. Russia began development of the SS-26 in the late 1980s to replace the OTR-23 “Oka” SRBM.

link.

source in russian.

A Russian Satellite Appears to be Stalking an American KH-11 Spysat

Publicly available data suggests that a Russian inspector satellite has shifted its position in orbit to bring it relatively close to a U.S. KH-11 spy satellite. Russia has a number of what it calls "space apparatus inspectors" in orbit, which the U.S. government and others warn the Kremlin could use to gather intelligence on other satellites or function as "killer satellites," using various means to damage, disable, or destroy those targets.

link.

Official B-21 Rendering

Wuhan Virus Update

By the time this gets published, China will probably have over 3,000 confirmed cases and over 80 deaths.  15 cities are in quarantine.  China has started suspending at least some of intercity travel services.  Hong Kong has started selectively blocking mainlanders from entering the territory.

China has started testing an HIV drug to see if it will work to combat the disease.

5 million people left Wuhan before the lockdown.

The US has 5 cases.  One of them is in Maricopa County, AZ.  Arizona is a noted location for the elderly to move to and the virus preferentially kills the elderly.  This could get exciting.

Several countries the world over now infections.  France and Africa (Gabon) appear to have their first cases.  It does not, yet, seem to be spreading within those countries.

The US and France are evacuating their citizens from Wuhan.  The Americans are being shipped to San Francisco.

The disease is infectious during the incubation period.  The incubation period is averaging 10 days, some as long as 14 days, some as short as 1.  The interesting case is the woman from Chicago: she was in Wuhan a month ago and came down with the symptoms only this last few days.  She may be an outlier or was in contact with someone with the virus more recently than her trip and has not been identified.  There are reports some people never seem to develop symptoms, but are carriers.

NY Times has fairly good updates.

Images Emerge of China's new Capsule

Terminator Times #68

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones):

The US government has banned the procurement and use of Chinese made UAVs.

DARPA's X-61A Gremlins made a first flight.  However, the prototype crashed when the recovery parachute failed to deploy.  DARPA is moving onto aerial recovery.

A USAF MQ-9 Reaper was ferried itself to Holloman AFB instead of being shipped and assembled.

A drone strike by the USAF killed an Iranian QUDS Force commander.  Israel claims the strike happened  due to an intercepted communication.   That has been cast in doubt.

The USAFA and Sierra Nevada designed and built the 5GAT 5th gen target drone.  It might be useable as a Loyal Wingman.

The USAF's X-58A Valkyrie flew its 4th test.  It expanded its flight envelope.

The US Coast Guard will outfit all its national security cutters with ScanEagles by end of year.

Brazil will operate ScanEagles from its naval ships.

British efforts to deploy its first swarming drone squadron have been delayed.

In Cambodia, a Chinese made drone crashed.  It's a bit of a mystery as to who owns it.

China is expanding its use of small UAVs.

China's CASC is expanding its UAV production.

China's army may be using the Harwar’s Zhanfu H16-V12 UAV.

China flew the world's first 3 engine large fixed wing drone.

A Houthi attack using missiles and drones killed more than 100.

Indonesia unveiled its Black Eagle MALE UAV.

The Philippines air force has its first Hermes 900 enter service.

Russia is pursuing a quad tilt-rotor drone for its navy.

The Russian Altius - U UAV will have sat communications.

A Turkish made Karayel UAV was shot down over Yemen.

Turkey TEI is delivering indigenous UAV engines.

Bell's V-280 being tested for the US Army's Blackhawk replacement program can now fly autonomously.

Boeing has partnered with Tactical Robotics.

General Atomics will demo the Gray Eagle UAV as a ballistic missile spotter.

Leonardo's Falco Xplorer has taken flight.

Robotic Research unveiled a UAV/UGV hybrid.

Telephonics claims to have won the competition for the MUX UAV's AEW sensor.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Bolos and Ogres and Terminators, oh my!):

The US Army selected Qinitiq for the RCV-L and Textron (Howe & Howe) for the RCV-M.

The French army has received its first NERVA LG UGVs.

Unmanned Surface Vehicles (Ro-boats):

The US Navy thinks getting USVs into the line is more important than whether they count as part of the battle force.  However, the USVs won't count towards the 355 ship fleet.

There is a debate suggesting the robo ships are really years away.

The US Navy is working to teach USVs to talk to one another.

A Sea Hunter USV will exercise with a carrier battle group.

Northrop tested the AQS-24B on the CUSV outfitted for MCM.

Textron thinks the CUSV will be great for USMC logistics.

Textron's CUSV is ready for production.

Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (robo subs):

The US Navy will start searching for a new medium class UUV.

L3Harris has providing IVER4 UUVs for the US Navy.

META:

China and America talking past each other on "AI" breeds distrust.

Could killer robots reduce collateral damage?

The US Army is looking at welding automation for its next gen combat vehicles.